That all sounds fine and I was content to wait and see. However a bunch of people online have gotten their panties in knots already over these rumors. Fixing the Chaos Codex isn’t hard, it isn’t rocket surgery. Here is what I would propose as someone having carried the torch for Chaos through many, many, rule changes.

HQ

HQ is easy you’ve got your Daemon Princes, your Lords, and your Sorcerers. You also have your special characters. GW likes them, I don’t. GW likes them because they can charge an even larger premium on the sales of special character models. Always remember the rules exist to sell miniatures.

The thing people seem to complain about is not being able to make all powerful mega Lords and Princes anymore so that will probably come back. I expect a lot more options and upgrades available similar to what you see on the Fantasy side in their Daemon Codex.

The biggest decision after who is going to lead your army is what god are they going to follow. I’d force people to choose right from the get go and theme the entire codex around this. Either your leader is devoted to Chaos Undivided or he/she is devoted to one of the four gods: Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh, or Tzeentch. This choice will affect your troop options severely. If you choose one of the four gods you may take troops devoted to that god as Troop choices. If you opt for Undivided you may take up to one troop choice from each god.

Lords and Sorcerers can be mounted on daemonic mounts. Nurgle lords can have a pet Beast of Nurgle who is Toughness 5. These are all wargear upgrade options.

Elite

I’m old school so I think all followers of chaos should be warped and corrupted so I would have no possessed entry. I’d have a single elite choice, entitle “Chosen of Chaos”. This would be like the Nobz mob in the Ork Codex. I remember when Chaos Lords could have retinues and the Chosen/Nobz are the comrades in arms of the Lord. Chosen could either be in terminator armor or not, just like Nobz mobs. I don’t know about bikes, I guess you could throw that option in.

There would be a special character which allowed you to take Chosen as troops enabling the all terminator army. There would also be a special character making raptors troops too.

Chaos should be more like the Grey Knights a smaller elite force. I mean some of them have been fighting for 10,000 years, you’d think they’d have improved over time, plus had their numbers reduced.

Troops

This is easy too, you have your Bezerker entry, they are Khorne’s mortal foot soldiers, specializing in close combat. One major addition I’d make to differentiate the loyalists from the Chaos worshipers is more daemons. For every unit of mortal foot soldiers you are allowed to take a single unit of the same or lesser size of daemonic foot soldiers.

Remember the elaborate summoning rules where Khorne had to get into H2H, Nurgle had to cause wounds, Tzeentch cast spells, and Sleneesh force moral checks I think. That is too complicated for today’s 40K, so probably just Deep Strike but force them to appear within six inches of someone with the matching mark.

Nurglings are supposed to be the most numerous of all lesser daemons. So Plaguemarines would be allowed to have a unit of Plaguebearers and a unit of Nurglings. The Nurglings would be say 1-3 stands and wouldn’t be summoned. They would just start the game with the Plaguemarines. I’d also not have Nurglings take up any space in transports. So you could cram 10 Deathguard plus 3 stands of Nurglings into a rhino. Call this rule, “There is always room for Nurglings.”

Vehicles

Right now there is a loyalist rhino box and a chaos rhino box, a loyalist predator box and a chaos predator box, and two landraider boxes. This is just dumb. There should be one box for each vehicle type and then one box called “Chaos Vehicle Upgrades” or some such. Putting these in their own boxes will reduce clutter on shelves and allow people to convert IG vehicles to chaos easier. These upgrades would be all new and all spiffy plastic bits.

Daemonic possession of vehicles would be encouraged. It looks cool and differentiates the bag guys from the good guys. Making the vehicle immune to shaken/stunned is good but why are daemons worse shots? Some daemons can see into the future, surely that helps with their aim? I’d make possessed vehicles BS 4 or even WS/BS 5. Then make it expensive say 25% the cost of the base vehicle.

New Stuff

There is no point in releasing a new codex without new models to flog. Chaos will get a drop pod, a new daemon engine, and two flyers. Just look at the Forgeworld stuff. They probably won’t even get a drop pod, just use the Chaos Vehicle Upgrade bits to convert the existing loyalist one. The daemon engine will probably be smaller than a defiler. Think along the lines of obliterators or killer cans. Something that would be fun to build and be fielded in groups of 1-3. Call it the Chaos equivalent of the attack bike or even landspeeder. I don’t care if it floats or flies, it is a size of model that is missing from the Chaos range.

There will of course only be one flyer model, you just can configure it to be a bomber or a fighter. I doubt Chaos will get the deploy troops from a flyer option, but you never know.

Fast Attack

I never get to use this much. Raptors as troops is a given, maybe that is the Night Lords bone, just bring the right special character. You could make bikers cooler by giving them the option of having jet bikes. Make a new kit that can be built with or without wheels, or just force people to build their jet bikers. Chaos is supposed to use pre-Heresy weapons still.

I’m not sure Fast Attack daemons will happen, that might be something unique to the all Daemon list and I’m fine with that.

Heavy Support

There are a lot of givens here: Landraider, Predator, Vindicator, Defiler, Devastator equivalent squad, Obliterators, plus the flyers. Because heavy support has so many options my gut says the new daemon engine thing will be fast attack. Heck where do dreadnoughts fit in, Elite or Heavy Support. I don’t think Chaos will get too many new big toys, but instead will get a lot of smaller options plus combined with special characters to tweak army list composition.

Special Characters

These aren’t going anywhere and supposedly heroic individuals are making a comeback on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. Most of the ones that are already sculpted will continue to exist in the rules. They’ll probably get the bring along lots of troops of that god special rule. Abbadon will make Chosen troops, Kharne will make Bezerkers troops etc. What they have to do to make a true Chaos Legion codex is release one special character for each Legion. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the readers. One trend which I kinda like is special characters who aren’t HQ. The Imperial Guard codex has a bunch but even Orks or the Codex Marines have some, you have your special scout sargent etc. etc. There will probably be one or two of these, but they really need one special character per Legion…

Well more wasted time today.

I’d like Chaos cultists, a special character that allowed cultists would be cool and something I’d consider running just to paint something other than power armor. ;-)

Update April 27, 2012

I participated way too much in some threads over at the B&C. A lot of my predictions and reasoning here and at the B&C seem to have been spot on though I never foresaw Demons being completely written out of the Chaos Space Marine army list, as per the latest rumors. That’s what they did in Fantasy so I guess that should have been on my radar. I’m glad that cultists seem to have returned as I’ve painted a lot of power armor over the years, but I’m not so glad that special characters continue to be more and more of a necessity to unlock rules and options. I really should wait and see yet more but people post rumor summaries to Facebook even if I stay away from the forums and unsubscribe from blog feeds…

I have a lot of unpainted models, some I should think of selling, but I also have a really large collection of painted Chaos models so I can field something in the new ‘Dex, I’m just not sure when I’ll be gaming or painting again. I’m also not sure how much time, effort, and money I want to invest in the hobby… Hopefully after I read the book I’ll think of something fun and unique to do, if it isn’t fun and unique I mean why bother. I hope to be able to do a faster and more maneuverable army as those do better in the local Vancouver tournament scene, or at least should given the missions and terrain used. I still am tempted to do another big horde unit, even though I dread painting them. Bezerkers, cultists, or zombies, I’ve stockpiled figs for those units for years, especially Bezerkers and cultists.

Also rumors of no dreadnoughts seems odd given how many I have painted, how many get bought from Forgeworld, maybe they’ll be a Forgeworld rules only model, maybe Forgeworld has a demons + CSM + cultist army list in the pipeline. That is usable at Astronomi-con Vancouver, which is good enough for me.

Must stay away from the hobby for another month or two as I try to find focus and health.

Update July 2012

Looks like my speculation and predictions here and especially over in various threads at the B&C were spot on. Daemons are now allies only, there is a new demon engine and a flying demon engine. There are some new HQ or possibly Elite options which implies the return of the 2 wound cheaper leader. Cult Troops are Elite but can be made troops by a hopefully non-special character HQ choice. Cult terminators are apparently gone which is a shame as I never did finish painting my Forgeworld Deathguard conversion kit models. I still might get the Bezerker terminator conversion bits some day.

I didn’t do the best job of focusing prior to my CFA exam and my health is still a work in progress, but it appears I will play my first game of Warhammer 40,000 in a long time soon. I’ll type up a battle report, it will be with sixth edition but apparently it is a month or two more before the chaos codex. I’ve made some notes about what I’d like to do, even given some thought to Demon allies. I also like Guard and Ork allies but with cultists providing cheaper troop choices in the CSM codex, they should be worse than Space Marine Scouts, like Rabble in the Imperial Armour 7 rules. Imperial Guard have good anti-air with the Hydra and Orks have lots of Forgeworld stuff too. Before I return to painting and modeling I need to find a real full time job.

Update 2 July 2012

Bitching and moaning about a book they haven’t even read continues over at the Bolter and Chainsword, but as more rumors come out and even some official GW teasers, a lot of my predictions were correct. Marks unlock cult troops, more demon engines, a flyer, no demons as troops. Abaddon apparently doesn’t make Terminators troops, breaking my proposed Leroy Jenkins build, but Typhus gets his own special build. Not sure I’ll run a Nurgle Lord or an Undivided Lord. I like Chosen and I honestly don’t mind having 3 Elites in a 1500 point army. A Dark Apostle boosts Cultists so maybe that is my small points leader, maybe I’ll do an Undivided Lord and Nurgle Sorcerer, finally repainting Cancerous the Extremely Naughty.

Update August 26th 2012

Some thought the new Chaos Codex would be out by now, it appears they were wrong. However some people have claimed to have seen it and someone calling themselves Faeit 212 has collected all the rumors in one place so you could pretty much start pricing out your army. I still am looking for work, so won’t be playing any miniature wargames or buying any models for a long time. I own plenty already, should probably sell some. I’ve sort of got three army lists in mind. One basically whatever I feel like using the many models I’ve already painted and converted, sort of a one of everything list just to try the new rules out. The second would be a pure Chaos Space Marine list to build towards which may or may not include Forgeworld stuff like the Decimator or Storm Eagle. The final list would be a series of lists with allies, starting with demons, likely not even all Nurgle demons. Based on the new rules I like Tzeentch demons best followed by Slaneesh.

I’ve always liked Chosen and now that you can just make up any sort of justification you want for your army list, I’m thinking two squads of Chosen so I can infiltrate one and outflank the other. Possibly one worshiping Chaos Undivided and one still worshiping Nurgle as I have so many models painted. I’ll still have three troop choices, but I’ve no clue about HQ. Part of me wants to do a Nurgle Biker Lord just to have toughness 6 and be annoying, but I possibly might do what I already do and put a sorcerer on the bike and have an undivided lord. I might even do a Khorne, Tzeentch, or Slaneesh Lord maybe all three, though I already have many models I could use.

I will use Cultists. My Servants of Decay will finally see the table top. Not sure if I’ll ever run a special character it seems so unimaginative, crutch 40K. The only special characters that interest me are the most obscure ones that don’t even have a model, like the Plague Father. I will use my existing Defiler and may build a second Defiler ASAP. I will first paint an undivided Rhino though I may need a dedicated Khorne rhino for my Bezerkers if the rumors are true. For Chaos your choice of HQ affects what counts as Troops, so it makes the most sense especially if I ever play larger games to have a Nurgle guy as my Warlord as I have so many Nurgle models painted. That is what I’ll probably do first, but ultimately I still don’t know.

I totally don’t know what I’ll do for Fast Attack. Your local ‘meta game’ and how common Flyers are will probably determine if you take the Chaos Dragon or a Forgeworld Flyer. I probably will get one of each at some point as I’m more of a collector than a gamer. Besides Defilers, Vindicators especially demonically possessed Vindicators are supposed to be all the rage. I guess I’ll continue to wait until the actual book is in my actual hands before I write a proper list, but I definitely have thoughts. The new box set is up on GW’s website so new Codices can’t be far behind.

Update September 4th 2012

Not much changes in my life, but I’ve taken again to reading the B&C and other rumor sources. Supposedly the Codex is coming out this month. Dark Vengance as they are calling the 6th Edition box set is already out. Here is yet another big rumor collection, I’m disappointed Chosen will lose Infiltrate, will Chaos Space Marines especially those of the Alpha Legion and its descendants be the only army list without any infiltration ability. Demons don’t count obviously as they all Deep Strike in. I’m thinking of running a Nurgle Lord on bike, just four toughness 6 and the ability to prevent scattering…

I may have 2 HQ at 1500 points as the 2 wound HQ has returned to Chaos supposedly, one of my many predictions that seems will come true.

Today I haven’t painted a single brush stroke. I’ve been so unproductive and lazy I forced myself at around 4:30pm to bike down to Grand Prix hobbies to buy some styrene. I’ve been hanging out more on the Waaagh and I want to get my Looted Wagons armed correctly and fully painted for this edition of Warhammer 40,000. I also plan to do at least two Battlewagons which will be converted and kitbashed but first I need a new job.

I actually have a job interview Tuesday afternoon. However I have my doubts about the position and the job offer. The company is a startup and although I’m totally willing to work for a startup, I don’t know what they actually do or how they plan to make money, besides the ever trendy “social media“. Seems to me that the social media field is a lot more crowded than it was three or better still four or five years ago. I know as I’ve been blogging for a long time. Anyway we’ll see what the CEO has to say.

Styrene tubes and more

I ended up buying more than a few tubes of styrene. I forgot how much styrene and Woodland Scenics stuff they carry. I think they get some model train people, scale modelers, and maybe even a few architects or students at least. Imperial Hobbies has a lot of stuff too, but I always think that is farther to go. Grand Prix is a decent bike ride, but you can still bike there and back in under an hour I imagine. I usually stop somewhere else on the way back…

I couldn’t pass up the battlefield styrene. I’ll probably cut one of them up. The tubes will also serve as pipes and what not, but some may get turned into gun barrels. I wanna order some more paint and of course Forgeworld goodies, but first I have to paint some Diseased Sons, then assemble and paint some more Chaos Space Marines, then two Forgeworld models… Then maybe I won’t feel guilty buying some small Forgeworld stuff.

Plus I’m going to get back to making terrain tiles every couple of weeks. I have to assemble another paint rack. All these plans don’t leave a lot of time for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. If I want to play that game, the Daemons are ready to go, but they always lose, so I’ll have to finish off another goblin unit. I plan to paint some Slaneesh daemons gradually, possibly over a grey basecoat which I’ll continue to experiment with. Painting even a dozen Slaneesh daemons seems easier and funner than 25 Ork Boyz or even 66 goblin shields…

New Painting Queue

Waaagh Musk 40K, requires lots of touch ups, and re-armings. Last night I did further revisions to the army list, I added and removed some vehicle upgrades, and I think one of my dreads will get a weapon swap, and I might as well give the Blood Axe nob a powerfist too… It might sound like a lot but there isn’t very many Orks in Waaagh Musk at 1500 points. I do have to do up five large vehicles, which I usually hate to do, but Ork vehicles can be made a lot funner and less work through heavy drybrushing and crazy weathering techniques.

Stay tuned, I might paint something late at night. Last night while I couldn’t sleep I tried out the Vallejo paint on gloss varnish, it worked great on the Bloodletter’s horns. If not tomorrow I will begin work on the last Purple Plaguemarines/Nurgle renegades I will ever paint, I mean it this time.

I didn’t win best overall, I did win my first game scoring 12 points which was quite impressive. Maybe this gave me delusions of grandeur. What it did was put me at the top of the table so I had to play the really tough armies and generals. I drew Nick Daniels who promptly stomped me. Though I did do better than our previous game, at Mini Astro Van. I got into H2H with my Landraider of Pain and routed much of the Imperial centre. Then the Ogryns arrived and proceeded to beat up or route my three Chaos HQ choices.

My lascanons totally let me down utterly failing to damage the Leman Russes or even the flyers/skimmers when they arrived. I got well and truly melted by the melta gun veterans too, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This year’s Astro Vancouver was a big success by all measurements. Nick Daniels won Best Overall. Lee won Best General with his Orks. I finished third for Best Appearence for the second or third time at Astro, but you won’t hear any complaints form me. There were a lot of tiebreakers involved so some people won unexpected trophies, they weren’t so much upsets but a product of the Astro policy of you can only win one trophy. Plus the trophies are ranked from Best Overall down to perhaps terrain, Best Terrain was probably the least contested trophy at this year’s Astro Vancouver with only two official entries.

Next year there should be more Best Terrain entries.

This year’s Best Terrain entry went to Duke who also helps out a lot behind the scenes making Astro Vancouver happen. I’ve forgotten the name of the guy who one Best Army List, um Steve… Franks according to the official results. He is another Vancouverite, this year the Americans didn’t take home all the best trophies and prizes. Though Nick thanked at least on American for not coming. Best Mini went to Matt Lau which was a bit of surprise. I liked his army and obviously the best model in it was well painted but I suspect Marshall Reeves got a lot of votes here, he got mine.

When Best Appearance was announced and Marshall didn’t win it, that had to be considered an upset. I believe another fellow from Kelowna won, by the name of Will Hellebrand. His army was Iron Warriors but he used the Dark Angels codex so he could run an all terminator armoured force. His display was impressive but there were others that were very deserving of this award. Astro uses a checklist style appearance judging with Christian and Mike free to add or subtract a couple points based on personal experience or overall effect or whatever. I had a display this year so I got two more points that way, losing those points hurts you in a very contested category. Like I said Will had a nice display base, but Marshall thought the Imperial Fists had the nicest display base and they didn’t even finish in the top three…

I’m not sure of all the tie breakers but tournament attendees get to vote for favorite army and best single mini. I didn’t finish in the top three for either of these categories. I think bringing the Diseased Sons or at least Chaos Space Marines three years in a row hurts me some, but I thought my Khorne Lord might have been a contender… It was a converted Forgeworld model which don’t see very often. An Avatar of Khaine won best single mini, frickin’ Eldar.

So far, Marshall had no trophies despite painting a sweet all deep striking army. I put several pictures of it in the Astro Flickr group and I’m sure more pictures of it will appear online eventually. Best Sportsmen, another very difficult to win trophy at Astro, went to Les from A-Club. I think the Kelowna Club had the most t-shirts in attendance on day one. Not everyone is in a club, I’m not. The guys who play at Trumpeters don’t have shirts but there was 4-5 maybe even six guys who regularly play at the Trumpeter’s club night. So maybe that was the largest group in attendance. Da Momma’s Boyz from Idaho actually outnumbered any Vancouver Club in t-shirts worn… I don’t think they won any trophies this year but I think they finished runner up and won some door prizes. I didn’t hear anything negative from or about the Americans, well except James Chen. ;-)

Best Army which is strictly chosen by the players, went to Marshall. He must have ranked well if not winning some of the other trophies but this was deemed more prestigious as it is peer chosen. So it was good all his effort was rewarded with a fancy trophy. Even better news for Marshall came later when he finished second over all earning the much coveted, by some, invite to the official Games Workshop, North American Grand Tournament in Las Vegas next year.

So Marshall and Nick will be flying the Astro flag or wearing the Astro shirts in addition to their club shirts at Vegas next year, good luck guys.

So how did I do, I’m not sure overall, but I did better than last year, which is what matters. Here is a mini batrep for each of the six games I played at Astronomi-con Vancouver this year.

Game One: Lost Patrol vs Ryan’s Imperial Guard

Game One Key Turn

My first game was against Ryan and the Imperial Guard army he apparently borrowed as his wasn’t quite ready in time. I think I benefited a bit from his unfamiliarity with the army, but I’m usually unfamiliar with mine and I got very little sleep prior to Astronomi-con as usual, so things were pretty even. Lost Patrol is a mission where both players have one troop choice that starts on the opposite side of the board and needs to make it to the other side alive.

Unfortunately you can’t actually escape off the end of the board you have to hunker down and wait for the game to end.

We both put footsloggers on the board, me because all my troops were on foot officially and Ryan seemed to think his Veterans were versatile enough to adapt to whatever faced them. Reserve rolls can be crucial at Astro, I’ve lost games because literally half my army either never showed up at all or didn’t show up until after the enemy had completed his mission. I think I may have been a bit luckier than Ryan at Reserve rolls but I wasn’t lucky, lucky. I’m never lucky at rolling dice.

George showed up early and possessed Clamitius. He then ran towards the Imperial guard forces trying to kill the Lost Patrol which consisted of an Infantry squad and a Leman Russ Punisher. Ryan stopped shooting at my Lost Patrol to try and kill George which he ultimately accomplished but I was a bit surprised, as completing the mission is of the utmost at Astro.

Ryan also had some Scout Sentinels outflank between the Lost Patrol and my table edge at some point. I had my Khorne Lord and the Obliterator on that side. Hunting down his Lost Patrol were the foot slogging Nefarious Fire and eventually much more effectively the Chosen in their rhino.

I charged the Scout Sentinels with the Lost Patrol after killing one with shooting. I used my Krak grenades to destroy the other and advance eight crucial inches up the board. Ryan advanced the Punisher and another squad of Guard in a Chimera. He killed my Obliterator at some point.

While all this was going on, the other Leman Russ, a Vanquisher, was shooting at my Landraider which was shooting back. He repeatedly missed or failed to penetrate my armour value 14. I concentrated on using cover and getting over to where my Lost Patrol was to protect and shield it. My Chosen caught up to his Lost Patrol on foot just before they could get into the Chimera he had driven empty towards them. I used my combi-weapons and what not to kill all but one Imperial Guardsmen.

He escaped and the Chosen fought a different Imperial Guard Squad instead next turn as they got in the way. My Lord hooked up with my Lost Patrol and acted as a human shield to a degree. The Lost Patrol headed away from the Punisher with the Landraider eventually killing it perhaps. Then the game ended and I got 300 extra Victory Points for getting my Lost Patrol to my side of the board. This mattered as it turned a probable tie into a victory and I picked up two secondary objectives scoring 12 big points! This was perhaps my best Astro result ever and certainly my best start. Then it was lunch time.

We went to the Pit Pub for lunch. I actually ate with the folks from A-Club and Relic Entertainment. Maybe I’ll have to apply to Relic yet again. It isn’t like I don’t know people who work there or am not familiar with the IP they work with…

Game Two: Intermission VS Nick Daniels Imperial Guard

So as already mentioned I lost to Nick Daniels and using those easy 13 points he went on to win Best Overall. Once in Ottawa someone got mad as they lost a tournament of Silent Death because the other guy drew me in the semi-finals and I was considered too easy of a victory, giving up too many points or whatever… I try to win. I just don’t try as hard as some people.

I lost to Nick because I couldn’t deal with his Vendetta or more specifically the Veterans inside his flying transports with all the Melta Guns. In future I think the solution is to stay in your transports until the veterans are on the table top. Little known fact, you can shoot a melta gun out of rhino, so it isn’t like I absolutely have to get out at the first opportunity. In the olden days Rhinos were a bit of a death trap, no more especially for Fearless troops like Plaguemarines.

Imperial Reinforcements Arrive

We won’t go in to details on the ineffectualness of my Lascannons. I still could have won as I concentrated on getting my Landraider of Pain across the board and my Lord into H2H. I proceeded to kill or route all the guardsmen I could. Then the Ogryns arrived and shot up and charged my HQ and retinue. Even George had no luck against them. Literally no luck. My sorcerer isn’t Fearless and ran after the Ogryns won the first round of H2H. Neither him nor the Lord were really wounded… I still had my powerfist champion too I believe.

The Dreaded Ogryns Arrive

Ogryns VS George

I didn’t get too hurt at all in H2H early on. Next round of H2H my Lord didn’t get to even go as he rolled three ones out of seven dice as Nick concentrated on killing him and I dutifully failed just enough armor saves to die. That said I liked having terminator armour, I’m not sure I’ll run a terminator lord again, but some Khorne or Undivided Terminators will be definitely painted up. With my Lord dead and most of Gangrene Squad, George showed up and had to fight alone against the Ogryns. I might have ended up killing an Ogryn or maybe two but in general I got stomped in H2H by Imperial Guard Ogryns.

The game was over now and Nick flew a Vendetta around to kill my last man. I did kill the Stormtroopers but my Chosen were killed by his Veterans in H2H possibly and my Landraider was destroyed by the Leman Russes or the last surviving Imperial Guard and their Lascannon. I can’t remember what I scored, 2 maybe. This gave me 14 points total after two games which should be about average. I then drew the Americans…

Game Three: Truck Convoy VS Otto’s Grey and Purple Blood Angels

Truck Convoy is a fun mission and wasn’t Victory Points based. I try hard to accomplish the mission, so Victory Points games are not to my favour, but I had two so far. For the longest time it looked like we would tie with two canisters each.

Game 3 Deployment

Then he transferred his canisters from his jump pack armed guys to his tactical squad guys after I said he could totally do that. Then the jump pack guys jumped into the fray around my second canister. I got my first canister with George and though we were a bit confused at first this wasn’t a bad strategy as basically he carried it away while the Loyalists shot as much as they could at him.

I put my chosen in front of the truck convoy but I think that was a mistake. The trucks move randomly and perhaps I should have used the Chosen more aggressively to take the fight to the enemy, that was Otto’s post-game suggestion. What ended up happening is we disabled two trucks, destroyed two trucks and their canister, and severely damaged two trucks. Two trucks were on his side and two were in the middle close enough for me to walk to.

George eventually died and the Obliterator couldn’t pick up the canister so Syphilis had to grab it. I spent a lot of effort, way too much effort trying to kill the Baal Predator with it’s four re-rolling shots a turn. He also had a bunch of razorbacks with heavy bolters shooting at George. My Landraider missed or failed to destroy the Baal Predator too many times and then due to all the carnage couldn’t do much the rest of the game. I should have deployed it more centrally. Things arrived from reserves that weren’t on foot, only footsloggers could start the game on the board. So there are advantages to being on foot in some missions.

George gets a canister

Gangrene got my second canister and then were charged by a Sanguinary Priest and friends. Sanguinary Priests are annoying and cheap at 50 points and my opponent had three of them. My Lord got rid of one maybe even two. But Gangrene had to drop the canister and was gradually killed off. The Nefarious Fire ran up saved the Lord from being dragged down by weight of numbers, but even if the canister is at your feet you can only pick it up at the end of your movement phase, not during consolidation. So I had to stand where I was and wait for more Blood Angels to attack. More shots were also sent towards this canister as the game went on.

Chaos advances on ruined trucks

Eventually it became clear that even going to seven turns I would never be allowed to pick up the canister even if I killed every Blood Angel that came near. So my Lord actually left guarding the canister and tried to kill tactical marines with his combi-bolter. There were only five tactical marines holding two canisters, but they were behind ruined rhinos, trucks, and all sorts of other stuff so my army on the right most importantly the Landraider couldn’t get a bead on them. The game ended and I lost 1 canister to 2.

H2H Hoe Down around the key canister

I forget how many points I had but not many, maybe 4 for my efforts giving me about 18 after day one. Very middle of the road if not in the bottom half. After the traditional pub diner I went home uploaded photos to Flickr and fell asleep.

Game Four: Hammer and Ambul VS James’s Tyranids

James gave me a ride home and to the tournament so it was odd we drew each other. I lost this game, which was once again Victory Points based and the reason I lost, besides the fact that George, the Khorne Lord, and Sorcerer proved no match for the Tyranids in H2H, was deployment. I won the roll and chose to stay on the side I was on and go first. I thought this would give me an extra turn to shoot at the Tyranids. I deployed across the width of the board, put the Sorcerer with Gangrene on the left flank the Khorne Lord with the Nefarious Fire on the right flank so as his outflankers and deep strikers would have to fight one of them.

Game 4 Deployment

He chose to refuse flank and set up most of his army in the far left third of the board. The Ambuls we played a bit wrong and they had no real effect on the game. He kept giving Feel No Pain to his 24 strong unit of Hormaguants and they were in cover on the one turn I got to shoot at them. I killed one or two.

Things get messy

The Landraider and the Obliterator concentrated their Lascanons on the easier to kill big bug, the Tervigon. I ultimately killed it but it was too late, it made the Hormaguants game winners who along with the Swarmlord and the Trygon Prime I had no real good solution for. His Gargoyle’s died while deep striking and my outflanking Chosen majorly whiffed. They arrived got out and blasted the Hormaguants missing with three of the combi-meltas and failing to wound with the fourth.

Next year I won’t have four combi-meltas. I still like Chosen but the combi-meltas in the Rhino was not an improvement. I think I’d rather be on foot so I have the option of Infiltrating or Outflanking.

George tries his luck

Anyway the Sorcerer was a total failure, failing to cast his spell and causing himself a wound. I think I even shot the Landraider at the Hormaguants. They got to charge Gangrene and and even the arrival of George for the Chosen Champion didn’t do much. James complained that I died too slow, but the fact I was going to die was inevitable. My centre also fell with the Zoanthropes getting in range of the Landraider and promptly destroying it. I should have shot at them more I guess. But the Feel No Pain was really making a difference so I concentrated on the Tervigon which meant the Zoanthropes got to make it in range. I killed one early on but then the giant Mycetic Spore and the Termagant Brood drew my attention. I eventually killed both, but by then I’d lost the left flank and my Land Raider.

Chaos still stands defiant

My Obliterator was next to go as the Tervigon ate it. I almost killed the Tervigon got it down to one wound remaining. It should have died as the Nefarious Fire poured fire into it. But then it spawned more Termagants. Eventually the Nids got into H2H with my right flank and the Trygon Prime was too much for the Khorne Lord. I actually concentrated on killing the little bugs as I knew I was going to lose H2H with the big bug and I’d get an extra point if I killed all his troop choices.

James was unable to kill all my Nefarious Fire Chaos Space Marines before the game ended. In future against the Nids I will either castle in a corner or set up my entire army in the middle. Of course my future armies will be a lot different but I still favour H2H over shooting as generally Chaos is not the shootiest army around.

Game Five: Sink or Swim VS Devon’s Imperial Guard

Game 5 Deployment

If you hadn’t guess it yet, Imperial Guard was the most popular army this year at Astro. I counted seven or so. Even putting all the loyalists marines together they didn’t have as many and I was the only Chaos Codex user and brought the only Daemon. There were no Daemon armies, no Sisters, no Space Wolves, but every other army was represented.

Devon’s Imperial Guard was different than Nick’s or Ryan’s but like Nick he had two flyers, one Vendetta and one Valkyrie I’ve been informed. His troops were all Veteran squads either in Chimeras or Vendettas. He had two special characters, Marbo and one of the super Sargents. Marbo appeared in my backfield threw his demo charge and killed four or five plaguemarines. Then I moved away from him and ignored him until he charged me.

Syphilis faces down a Vendetta

Devon also dropped off a Veteran squad in front of my Landraider filled with Pain. They of course rolled double ones for their charge roll through the rocks and never got to use their melta bombs or whatever on the Landraider. I shot at them a lot but they went to ground and survived. This was on the left Flank, on the Right Flank and the other side of the river things were going better for Devon.

Avoid and ignore Marbo

The other flying transport plus the Leman Russ killed the Nefarious Fire squad quite rapidly even though they were in cover. The final model actually ran off the table. This mission was table quarters and I knew I could never take all four but the plan was to hold the Right Flank with the Nefarious Fire and the Left Flank with Syphilis while advancing in the Landraider of Pain into the Imperial ranks.

Marbo and the super aggressive veterans and of course the Vendetta and Valkyrie gave me problems. Eventually Syphilis charged his Veterans. Devon also had a Bane Wolf which I tried to kill before it reached my lines but all I could do was shake it or something. When I realized all the melta bombs and another demo charge were on my doorstep I made killing those Veterans the priority. Syphilis came through.

Melta guns dispatch Vendetta

I roared the Landraider forward disembarked Gangrene and melted the Vendetta with point blank fire. This is the way to get rid of Vendettas. Stay in your transport and drive right at them. Make em run or die.

Damaged rhino advances

My Chosen showed up at some point on the far flank and had to drive through the river. Devon shot them a pile, but with the Lascannon Vendetta dead he had to use Chimeras. A couple of his Chimeras got stuck moving through difficult terrain which was nice, but still there was four tanks in cover I had to deal with.

I totally lost my right table quarter and eventually abandoned my left one after melting the Balewolf and beating down Marbo. I got back in the Landraider and drove towards the enemy. Occasionally I’d shoot at the Leman Russ or it would shoot at me, but eventually it retreated. He couldn’t stop the Rhino and the Landraider was too much for him.

Chaos prepares to slaughter

The Chosen got out and roasted one Chimera. George showed up too. The Chosen took a beating in return fire but the lone survivor and George killed the Imperial Guard opposing them in H2H next turn. I split up Gangrene and my Lord. The Khorne Lord went and knocked on the Leman Russ while the rest of the Landraider of Pain dealt with another Chimera. I didn’t succeed in killing the Leman Russ the first round, but I immobilized it which was almost as good. The Chimeras and Guardsmen were no match for the Plaguemarines and the Sorcerer.

Chaos arrives at the Imperial lines

George ran into the far right quarter and I drove the rhino there too. After killing the Leman Russ the Lord got back into the Landraider and drove into my home quarter. In the last turn I even shot down the other flyer with a Lascanon. The game ended and I won two table quarters to one, with one being contested. This along with my hard work crossing the table and killing off other stuff of his earned me 13, full points.

You’d think I was on a roll…

Game Six: Hill 0.25 VS Ryan’s Necrons

This army was more than a little annoying/frustrating to play against. I didn’t get an army list to keep but the army consisted of the Deceiver and two Pyramids, six Destroyers, and two smallish squads of actual necrons. There was also six scarab swarms I believe. The mission was table quarters with the big hill in the middle counting as a fifth table quarter. I did some Googling and Ryan has a blog but he needs a better online handle if you ask me…

The plan was to drive down the road with the Landraider and kill the necrons and let them warp out. I didn’t plan to put much effort into killing the pylons or the god. It was a good plan made better when one Pyramid immobilized itself scouting of all things. The C’Tan started over the hill and the Landraider got on the road.

Ramming speed Mr. Sulu

Unfortunately the second Pyramid blocked the road so I decided to ram it. I knew they were hard to kill, but just how hard… Lascannons, Chainfists, Monsterous Creatures, even Melta Guns at point blank couldn’t scratch it. The living metal rule taking away the second dice of penetration is harsh. My best hope was the Chainfist Lord but he kept moving the Pyramid a half inch.

Knock, Knock!

Meanwhile the C’Tan killed Syphilis, they tried to shoot him, and five point blank plasma shots all hitting ultimately did nothing. The Destroyers killed the Nefarious Fire pretty much. The Chosen and George arrived. I actually possessed Bob the Necessary Evil because I though George might be able to hurt the Pyramid. Alas he couldn’t at all despite being a Greater Daemon as he only had Strength six! I shouldn’t have even tried to kill the Pyramid, I should have risked the difficult terrain test and drove through the forest. However it was very much in my way.

I was going to get back into the landraider after two, no three turns of futility but then the giant blast of the Pyramid immobilized my tank. This ruined whatever hope I had of winning. The sorcerer finally got out. George had already run off but was cut off by the scarab swarms so he pasted ’em. The actual Necrons kept moving around in difficult terrain undecided whether they wanted to advance and shoot or run and hide. Eventually they blasted George to death when he was about an inch away from them. I also sent my last living Plaguemarine towards the Necrons.

Chosen arrive on the wrong flank

The C’Tan eventually destroyed the Landraider when he was done with Syphilis. The Destroyers made quite a few we’ll be backs, the Chosen totally failed to do much and got killed by Destroyer return fire. If they had appeared on the other flank the game would have gone a lot differently. My opponent tried to say I couldn’t outflank for some reason but of course I can enter the game outflanking in a rhino…

Close but no cigar

Although George failed to reach the Necrons the last Plaguemarine did, he killed one with melta gun then killed another with his bare hands. I made my armor and feel no pain saves. So the Necron player lost combat by one, he broke and the superior Plaguemarine Initiative enabled me to run him down. That is right one Plaguemarine killed 12 Necrons in a single turn. The way to beat Necrons is definitely to get into H2H with the regular robots.

The Pyramid backed up making room for lots of shots to hit my surviving three models, then the C’Tan charged the last survivor and the game was over. I scored zero tournament points.

Guess who won?

That is right I went from doing the best possible to the worst possible in back to back games. I didn’t suddenly become an idiot during the 30 minute break so it shows you just how much matchups and missions matter, not to mention terrain. Paying attention ‘Ard Boyz aficionados down South? I was a bit unlucky not to kill the Pyramid perhaps I had 15 chainfist attacks several lascannons and two meltaguns… Oh well next year.

None shall live!

I’ve already got two army lists to work towards but my main goal is to work on the trench table. I don’t mind entering an army consisting of whatever I have painted in my display case at the time, but I’d like to paint my Servants of Decay army or at least a few new options for my Chaos Space Marines. I actually have four vehicle models to paint as I won a Forgeworld Khorne model, this was forgotten in Winnipeg, but was a very desired door prize. I only had four or five tickets in the bag, others may have had twenty or more. Some people spend a lot of money buying extra tickets to try and win some of the better donated door prizes. My new target CSM army list includes Bezererkers as I need them in order to field my new Blood Slaughter.

We’ll see just how much painting I can get done over the course of the next year or so. I badly need a job and still am in a running for a few, so hopefully my job search is finally at an end.

They are getting sealed right now. They’ll be dry and ready to go for Astronomi-con Vancouver tomorrow, err in 4 hours. I’m not sure I will be. I did finish all my models, though I left out one centerpiece type model as I knew I wouldn’t have had time. I’ll post more pictures and maybe some secrets next week, but in the mean time check out Da Kan Opena and Lefty the dynamic duo that will lead my army on the field of battle.

Wonder what my critics were doing for the last 72 hours while I was cranking these two out?

The battle continues as I’m still not done my two HQ choices for Astronomi-con Vancouver which starts in about 8 hours. Last year I stayed up 24 hours straight trying to finish my Chosen and the bases for my tactical squad of Nefarious Fire Chaos Space Marines. I really should have been done these models by now. I was lazy in not getting up and starting bright and early, I set an alarm but I just didn’t do it.

I never started painting until well after lunch time, when I spent about three hours painting purple flames…

The Sorcerer is even closer to being done but isn’t finished. His Force Weapon is done, but I kinda wish I’d painted it green or even purple. I wanted it to stand out from everything else in my army and by army I mean the entire Chaos Space Marine miniature collection which is considerable. No one has an orange sword until now…

The leather is also done. I’ve gotten worse at painting leather ever since my original pot of Snakebite Leather dried out. I had it from my original paint set, “Ork VS Eldar”. I still might have a few pots from that set, but I’ve been more ruthless in junking out old difficult to work with paint. The next pot I need to buy is Tin Bitz, all that Brass has really dried the pot out, maybe it’ll come back but I doubt it.

The skulls are the biggest challenge remaining. I tried Dhenab Stone on my last batch of skulls, but I’m not sure it combines well with my rusty red wash technique. I have a lot of skulls to paint on the Terminator Lord with 2 or 3 to paint on the Sorcerer. I just ran back to my painting desk and painted three more skulls Snakebite Leather that I missed on the Sorcerer. He has more than I first thought. I’ve gotten good at painting skulls doing all the Chaos Space Marines, but sometimes it still is a struggle.

Drybrushing does work, but I usually do the skulls last or close to the end and I don’t want to risk it so I generally paint on my highlights and use washes. I have a new pot of Skull White for the first time in like a decade, well maybe not that long, but a long, long, time. It will make painting skulls easier. I still haven’t decided if I’ll use Bleached Bone or Vallejo Model Color Beige…

Slaneesh Sorcerer WIP

Khorne Terminator Lord WIP

Now I’m going outside to get some fresh air. I’m going to walk to the Mac’s which is 24 hour and buy a drink with caffeine in it. Yes I’m back to caffeine after having a beer or two. This is what it takes to compete at Astronomi-con Vancouver. Either that or you just start you army for next year, last year…

I’ve been working on these models for most of the last three days. I’m finally done the silver and brass metallics and am where I should have been at lunch time. Of course I should have been done my entire Astronomi-con Vancouver army about a month ago, but I got sucked into painting stuff for next year and entirely too many Warhammer Fantasy Battle models.

I’m printing my army list and packing up. I have at least another hour or two of painting in me. I still have quite a lot to do on the chest of the Khorne Terminator Lord but the Slaneesh Sorcerer is mostly done. I’ve decided before I paint bone or leather I will paint the loin cloth of the terminator and the force sword of the sorcerer. These are pretty big and need to pop in the case of the force weapon and I’m going to do an off white for the loin cloth just because the Khorne Terminator Lord is really dark right now when viewed head on.

After the bone and the leather I’ll have more metallics to do probably some more silver and golds. I also have detail work like eyes and trim on the Commissar, plus he has a medal. Then I hope to varnish it after making sure the bases are up to snuff and then maybe, maybe I’ll have time for some gore…

I procrastinated away the morning. I just lay in bed for hours. It is too bad you can’t just visualize the model being finished then it will finish itself.

I’ve spent the last three plus hours painting purple flames. So I decided to celebrate and take a picture of the models, especially the base of the Terminator Lord. I used a different camera position so hopefully all the work I’ve done on the resin base is visible. Before anyone asks it was made by Scibor. Gotta find the link now.

The purple flames are my new dark purple recipe with slight variations for where on the model the flames are. The 3D flames are highlighted where as the free hand flames are painted with the lighter colours in the centre. You can have it both ways as far as I’m concerned. I mean they are demonic purple flames, the laws of physics don’t apply.

A lot of Purple Flames

I still have to paint:

Silver metallic bits

Green tubing

Brass Trim

Bones and Skulls

Belts and leathers bits

Terminator Lord’s Loin Cloth

The Sorcerer’s Force Weapon

Then it is final details like eyeballs and touch up work. The grey stone on the bases needs a little touch up, but I’m waiting until after I do the Brass Trim. The Sorcerer’s base actually has a lot more detail behind him, bricks, skulls, shell casings etc. It is going to be a long night, but I think I will soon leave the house and get some fresh air and a bite to eat.

My right knee is really bothering me. Too much time spent hunched over the painting table this week…